the day i was almost allergic to wine.

Today started out as a typical Monday. Sluggish to wake up on account of
1. it being Monday, and
2. the bottle of wine I’d split drank the night before during a heated game of Cards Against Humanity (which I dominated, ahem).

But as my afternoon schedule was chock-full of doctor appointments, my time at the office would be limited, which – although I love my new position/company – would admittedly be nice to ease into the workweek by starting it off with a half day.

Ah, how I wish I would have just stayed at the office.

If you don’t know, I recently had sinus surgery. During the surgery, Doc took out some pieces of tissue, and when he sent them off to Pathology (I could so be a regular on Grey’s Anatomy with my medical knowledge now), they discovered some kind of things that made him think some of my sinus issues could be allergy-related.

(Super technical, I know. There goes my career as an extra.)

So today, I went in for allergy testing.

Big Sister mentioned they usually did testing on your back, but I guess my place is special (special? Horrible? Interchangeable?) because it took over my arms.

Yes, those are all needles that are about to go into my arms.

So the way allergy testing works is that you start out getting all doses at a level 3 (allergens that are partially diluted). Each shot creates a little mosquito-esq bump guy on your arm. If your bump is 7mm or bigger, that means you’ve reacted positively to that allergen, which means you’re allergic to it. If it’s smaller than 7mm, you test again with that chemical/allergen at a level 2 (only slightly diluted). Then, again, if you don’t react to at least a 7mm bump, you’re tested again with level 1 chemicals, which aren’t diluted at all.

Guess who didn’t react to any of them and had to go through three rounds of allergy testing? (Me, if you couldn’t guess.)

Which means three rounds of 21 shots, each round with a chemical that burns more than the last round did. Plus they’re shots. Plus they give you these weird welts that make your arm look like a packet of birth control.

Nurse, before the shots started: Don’t worry, they’re really more annoying than painful or anything.

Please feel free to refer to my previous post on medical professionals who are fantastic at underestimating how much medical procedures are going to hurt. You know, since they PERFORM them instead of ENDURE them.

Each round takes 15 minutes to process, which means 15 minutes of awkward small talk with the oversharing (but sweet) nurse and me running out of lives on Candy Crush. Before my third round finished, Nurse was almost positive it would show that I was allergic to candida, a fungus that’s basically yeast, mainly from the amount of antibiotics I’d been on for the past year.

Ever helpful, she then handed me a list of foods that, if you cut out, can help minimize side effects from said candida allergy.

Candy…I can definitely do that.

Milk…Don’t drink anyway. No problem.

White bread…check. Wheat all the way, baby.

Whiskey…thank God, now I have a legit reason to refute it. #gross

On and on the list went, until my eyes stopped on one important entry:

Cheese.

Oh God, cheese? CHEESE? I pretty much avoid dairy, but cheese? Are you sure?

Then I saw this guy:

Wine.

Oh.

My.

God.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

It’s not enough that I’ve had consecutive sinus infections for the past eight months? That I’ve been on so many rounds of antibiotics I don’t remember a time I haven’t been on some kind of medication?

That I had to go through a super painful surgery and still can’t smell or taste everything?

That I had to get stuck 63 times for allergy testing?

Now I can’t drink wine? OR eat cheese? Or have wine WITH my cheese? Are you (sorry, expletives) FUCKING kidding me?!

If the 15-minute egg timer signifying the end of my last round of testing hadn’t gone off right at that moment, I probably would have burst into tears.

Nurse: Well, you tested positive to candida.

Me, choking back sobs: Are you sure?

Nurse: Let me check with the head allergist.

Let me just say: BLESS YOU, HEAD ALLERGIST, WHOEVER THE HELL YOU ARE.

Nurse: Well, Head Allergist says she doesn’t think you’re allergic enough to it to be making an impact toward your health. And you’re only kind of-sort of-barely allergic to dust mites to be a problem either, so…you’re really not allergic to much of anything.

And back to the drawing board we went.

After a quick follow-up with Dr. ENT and a 90-day prescription of kindof-allergy medicine (I don’t even ask questions anymore), I was finally on my way home. 3.5 hours at the doctor’s office is more than enough for me.

When I arrived home, this little guy was waiting for me in my mailbox.

(The bill, not the wine. The wine was to cope with whatever was listed on the bill.)

And then this happened.

And then the tears happened.

Naturally, I drowned my sorrows in Velveeta slices and a glass bottle of Pinot Noir. Take that, allergies.